American peaceworker killed by Israeli Bulldozer- American Government...

[Camp_Democracy]

DOES NOTHING!!!

Does everyone know the story of Rachel Corrie?


Rachel Corrie, 23, was killed on 16 March when she was run over by an Israeli bulldozer. Rachel was trying to stop the bulldozer from demolishing the home of a Palestinian doctor in the Gaza Strip. Our hearts go out to her family and friends.

Scoop here presents a memorial photo-essay
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0303/S00153.htm





Here is some of her writings...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,916299,00.html

I have been in Palestine for two weeks and one hour now, and I still have very few words to describe what I see. It is most difficult for me to think about what's going on here when I sit down to write back to the United States. Something about the virtual portal into luxury. I don't know if many of the children here have ever existed without tank-shell holes in their walls and the towers of an occupying army surveying them constantly from the near horizons. I think, although I'm not entirely sure, that even the smallest of these children understand that life is not like this everywhere. An eight-year-old was shot and killed by an Israeli tank two days before I got here, and many of the children murmur his name to me - Ali - or point at the posters of him on the walls....

Just want to write to my Mom and tell her that I'm witnessing this chronic, insidious genocide and I'm really scared, and questioning my fundamental belief in the goodness of human nature. This has to stop. I think it is a good idea for us all to drop everything and devote our lives to making this stop. I don't think it's an extremist thing to do anymore. I still really want to dance around to Pat Benatar and have boyfriends and make comics for my coworkers. But I also want this to stop. Disbelief and horror is what I feel. Disappointment. I am disappointed that this is the base reality of our world and that we, in fact, participate in it. This is not at all what I asked for when I came into this world. This is not at all what the people here asked for when they came into this world. This is not the world you and Dad wanted me to come into when you decided to have me. This is not what I meant when I looked at Capital Lake and said: "This is the wide world and I'm coming to it." I did not mean that I was coming into a world where I could live a comfortable life and possibly, with no effort at all, exist in complete unawareness of my participation in genocide. More big explosions somewhere in the distance outside.

much much more- really interesting reading!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,916299,00.html

interesting MP3 about situation
http://twincities.indymedia.org/local/webcast/uploads/metafiles/why_do_they_hate_us.mp3

[Behind the Aegis]

1. Didn't you already post this and it got moved to I/P?

[Camp_Democracy]

5. well it was moved there, and then locked because it had pictures

so I thought I'd try posting it here again because it was high up on the greatest page, and there are so many other posts about Israel and Palestine...I thought it must have been a mistake.

[Behind the Aegis]

6. If it gets moved...

...it is de riguer to re-post it after it has been moved. it's also against the rules. Just an FYI. Welcome.

[Camp_Democracy]

7. Thanks for the info...

Why was it moved without explanation? Why was it removed from the greatest page? There are so many other threads on Israel. :shrug:

[K8-EEE]

12. I Don't Understand Why They Move Stuff To I/P Then Lock It?

That's happened with two other threads at least too -- they move it and then come up with a rule to lock it. I agree with the :shrug:

[Behind the Aegis]

16. The rules are different in I/P.

Apparently, though, the I/P rule has been suspended.

[Behind the Aegis]

17. It was moved because it was I/P and not general.

The other threads on Israel is because DU is allowing the current conflict with Lebanon to exist outside I/P. Just don't post anything positive about Israel, that will get locked and sent to an obscure forum.

[Wonk]

19. "Just don't post anything positive about Israel, that will get locked and

sent to an obscure forum."

Like the earlier incarnation of this thread was positive about Israel?

Could you be any more biased in your posting?

I think the mods are moving and locking threads that are deemed intentionally inflamatory, no matter which side.

[Behind the Aegis]

20. Wrong!

I posted a thread in LBN about the first Israeli to win Wimbledon. The article was 5 hours old...two Israeli haters decided to attack the thread...and off it went to the "Sports forum." You are going to tell me you have never seen sports related news posted in LBN?

Could you be more biased in your assessment?

[K8-EEE]

13. de riguer means "necessary"

Did you mean it is frowned upon to repost after it's moved?

[Behind the Aegis]

15. Yes...it is frowned upon...I used the wrong idiom. oops!

[EFerrari]

2. Rachel, we will never forget you..

:kick:

[Name removed]

3. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[uppityperson]

4. RIP Rachel

This was posted in before GD, got moved to I/P then locked because of picture when it was ok to post picture in GD? Catch 22? Can we post decent and leave it in GD?

[Selatius]

8. Yeah, the US government didn't open up an investigation into the matter

I was told through several Seattle associates who worked with the same peace group in Seattle that the local Palestinians in Rafah considered her a martyr, and--like is often done with Palestinians who have died in clashes with the IDF and even suicide bombers--they held a funeral procession where a coffin was draped with an American flag symbolizing Corrie's body. Often times, it was the American flag that was burned as a symbol of hatred of US policy and the US itself.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

9. This girl has been villified by the right wing

more than almost anyone I've seen. I can't even begin to describe some of the disgusting things I've read and heard about her coming from the Bush crowd. And whether you think she was right or deluded, Rachel Corrie didn't stand for violence or hurting others but only wanted to help others and work for peace.

[rman]

10. Rachel will be forever remembered

[Camp_Democracy]

11. more from Rachel

I thought a lot about what you said on the phone about Palestinian violence not helping the situation. Sixty thousand workers from Rafah worked in Israel two years ago. Now only 600 can go to Israel for jobs. Of these 600, many have moved, because the three checkpoints between here and Ashkelon (the closest city in Israel) make what used to be a 40-minute drive, now a 12-hour or impassible journey. In addition, what Rafah identified in 1999 as sources of economic growth are all completely destroyed - the Gaza international airport (runways demolished, totally closed); the border for trade with Egypt (now with a giant Israeli sniper tower in the middle of the crossing); access to the ocean (completely cut off in the last two years by a checkpoint and the Gush Katif settlement). The count of homes destroyed in Rafah since the beginning of this intifada is up around 600, by and large people with no connection to the resistance but who happen to live along the border. I think it is maybe official now that Rafah is the poorest place in the world. There used to be a middle class here - recently. We also get reports that in the past, Gazan flower shipments to Europe were delayed for two weeks at the Erez crossing for security inspections. You can imagine the value of two-week-old cut flowers in the European market, so that market dried up. And then the bulldozers come and take out people's vegetable farms and gardens. What is left for people? Tell me if you can think of anything. I can't.

If any of us had our lives and welfare completely strangled, lived with children in a shrinking place where we knew, because of previous experience, that soldiers and tanks and bulldozers could come for us at any moment and destroy all the greenhouses that we had been cultivating for however long, and did this while some of us were beaten and held captive with 149 other people for several hours - do you think we might try to use somewhat violent means to protect whatever fragments remained? I think about this especially when I see orchards and greenhouses and fruit trees destroyed - just years of care and cultivation. I think about you and how long it takes to make things grow and what a labour of love it is. I really think, in a similar situation, most people would defend themselves as best they could. I think Uncle Craig would. I think probably Grandma would. I think I would.

You asked me about non-violent resistance.

When that explosive detonated yesterday it broke all the windows in the family's house. I was in the process of being served tea and playing with the two small babies. I'm having a hard time right now. Just feel sick to my stomach a lot from being doted on all the time, very sweetly, by people who are facing doom. I know that from the United States, it all sounds like hyperbole. Honestly, a lot of the time the sheer kindness of the people here, coupled with the overwhelming evidence of the wilful destruction of their lives, makes it seem unreal to me. I really can't believe that something like this can happen in the world without a bigger outcry about it. It really hurts me, again, like it has hurt me in the past, to witness how awful we can allow the world to be.

[K8-EEE]

14. Do They Also Have The Right To Defend Themselves?

That is the problem....they haven't had that right and this is why things have gotten so bad.

[Pachamama]

18. I will never forget her name....she was a truthseeker and a peacemaker

Two things we need more of in the world!

Namaste Rachel!

:hug:

[Skinner]

21. Locking.

When the moderators move your thread out of GD, you can't just assume it "must have been a mistake" and re-post.